


Dice Fics

by Capitola



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drabble Collection, F/M, Hair Braiding, Multi, Pining, Polyamory Negotiations, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:15:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23323060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capitola/pseuds/Capitola
Summary: Some short drabbles written for prompt games, with different characters & ratings.
Relationships: Caleb Widogast/Yasha, Jester Lavorre/Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast, Jester Lavorre/The Traveler, Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast/Yasha, Pike Trickfoot/Vax'ildan, Veth Brenatto/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	1. Caleb/Veth, G

**Author's Note:**

> A friend made some tables of pairings and prompts and we've been rolling dice to determine which ones we write for sprints, hence, "Dice Drabbles." Warnings will be added as necessary & rating may change.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rolls:  
> d12: " _the common tongue of your loving me_ "  
> d10: Caleb/Veth

“Tell me how it’s going to be alright.” Veth leans her head against his knee, eyes glancing away from the fire. Not  _ tell me it’s going to be alright _ , but  _ tell me  _ how. She’s not one for empty promises, not a fan of half-truths. She’ll take a little fake-it-til-you-make-it, tuck that away for a rainy day, but she wants the facts, if she wants them at all. 

Caleb pauses, hands frozen mid-plait as he thinks. She doesn’t move either, just bites at the inside of her cheek as she waits for the words to collect on his tongue. 

“It’s going to be alright because you’re very clever, and because I’m very powerful.” His hands begin moving again as he talks, the quick and practiced over-and-under and over-and-under. “It’s going to be alright because our fr— our family make up for all the things you and I can’t do, and we’ve come a long way with that already.” He ties the braid off, perfectly matched with the other one. “And because, well.” He leans down, pressing a kiss to the side of her head, just at the hairline. She turns around to him, smiling admonishingly.

“I’ll make you say it, for real, one of these times,” she says, but she doesn’t move away when he leans in to kiss her once more.


	2. Artagan/Jester, M

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rolls:  
> d12: " _awful heart_ "  
> d10: Artagan/Jester

Jester’s  _ trying _ , is the thing. She’s trying  _ really _ hard: to listen, to create, to be joyful, all at the same time. She’s trying to be who she has to for everyone, him included. 

And maybe it’s not a departure from that; maybe kissing your oldest friend is another kind of trying, a way to make even the most familiar into something difficult that you have to dance around and conquer. 

But it  _ does  _ feel so familiar, so right, to be what made him who he is and still insist that he be more to her. To ask that he kneel down and slide the lacy knickers from her thighs and  _ worship _ , anything to take her mind off the effort of being herself these days. 

He can ask her no questions from down there and she can tell him no lies; only bend back and curl her fingers in the lace of her petticoats. His hair sprouts up like a wild ginger mess, but she never catches a tangle as she runs her hands through it, and she is grateful for that: how easy. Easy, easy, easy to do this, happy and joyful and — oh, downright ecstatic. Easy, like a rotten fruit gives under a knife. Slippery, easy, rotten to the core. 

He continues working at her, unrelenting through her orgasm, only stopping when she pushes his head back. He smiles at her, that lazy, easy, self-satisfied smile. She doesn’t know what she’ll say when he opens his mouth once more so she doesn’t let him. She kisses him and pulls his skinny archfey ass onto the bed with her, because as long as she’s  _ trying  _ this, she’s not trying to do anything else.


	3. Caleb/Essek/Jester, T

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rolls:  
> d12: " _the drums that start_ "  
> d8: Caleb/Essek/Jester

He couldn’t possibly be so lucky twice, to fall in love twice again. 

He didn’t know it was luck when he was young, it just seemed natural. He had Astrid and he had Wulf and they had each other’s backs through everything. And they were pretty nice backs, and not bad fronts either. 

He grieved not only the relationship he had had with them, but the _type_ of relationship they had had: three balanced parts, like a triangle in a cat’s cradle. There are lots of different ways to form a triangle, but each of them make a balanced shape. 

He never thought of his relationship with Jester as something _lesser_ , just...a different shape. The two of them could be very happy together, _were_ , already, quite happy. And then, Essek.

They both like Essek, as a project. As a person who they want to _help_ , really, that’s all it is, until one evening when they’ve both had a little too much to drink, and she makes one too many jokes about how you almost want to kiss the smug words off of Essek’s stupid face, and he looks at her, and asks, _Really?_

And she demurs a little bit because she’s _happy_ , she is, she just, she has eyes. And Caleb says that he also has eyes, and he tells her, you are so easy to love, why not see just how easy _we_ can be for him to love.

It was just...luck. Coincidence. Happy coincidence.


	4. Caleb/Yasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rolls:  
> d8: Humility / Pride  
> d10: Caleb/Yasha

Yasha had almost forgotten what it was to be proud of herself. To take stock of the person that she is in any way beyond a thorough scourging of all her faults, all her mistakes that have brought her to this place in life where she is granted happiness she hardly deserves. 

She  _ can _ remember it, these days, reach for it; she can remember when she was young and proud of all she had, all her strength and all the love she had for Zuala. It’s like a taste she can barely feel on her tongue. 

She thinks she hides it so well until she meets Caleb, until she realizes just how much a person’s wounds show through under layers and layers of humility and stoicism. She sees, too, with a burning jealousy, how much he grows, not letting the wounds hinder him, while she feels...incomplete, still. Left behind what all of them are finding, something on the outside.

She thinks of seeking him out, some night, telling him this, not in so many words. It would have been a long time for him too, she thinks, and he would be slow, timid. Polite. He wouldn’t presume any of her to be his, any more than she would presume him to be hers. 

He would smile at her, cautiously, ask how much she wanted. And she’d smile, too, and she’d tell him.


	5. Caleb/Molly/Yasha, G

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rolls:   
> d12: " _every step that I ran to you_ "  
> d10: Farmer's Market  
> d8: Caleb/Molly/Yasha

They’re not regular morning people, the lot of them. Caleb stays up too late with his books, Yasha with her music, Molly with his art, his dancing, the thousand odd things it takes to maintain his attention. They alternate being the morning person, though, balancing each other out, always one to drag the others out of bed. 

This morning it’s Caleb, who woke dreaming of green summer vegetables and crisp, tart rhubarb. He plys them with coffee and soft nudges to the face, and by the time he’s gotten them round to the idea of packing into his old station wagon and driving to the farmer’s market, they’ve rubbed the sleep from their eyes and Yasha is excitedly musing about what flowers are in season. Molly takes the backseat, brushing Yasha’s hair from where she sits in the passenger’s seat. 

The market is full and bright and lively, and for a moment Caleb gets separated from the both of them, his breath getting faster as he searches the crowd. He feels a hand close over his and he recognizes the callus of Yasha’s fingers, relaxes his hand into hers. She’s got Molly by the other hand, and he’s never been more clearly happy to have the both of them. 


	6. Pike/Vax, G

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rolls:  
> d8: Temperance/Gluttony  
> d10: Pirate Ship  
> d10: Pike/Vax
> 
> The idea I had in my head for this prompt is a vague VM/M9 plotswap.

When they take over the pirate ship, they make Pike their captain. Because she’s got the most experience on boats, mostly, but also because it suits her. She blushes amicably, but wastes no time putting the rest of them to work, making it very clear that she holds her temporary leadership very seriously and they should too. Vax appreciates this turn of events, all told, likes the way that captainhood makes her stride up and down the deck, the confidence it lends to her shoulders. 

He tells her as much when they’re sitting out on deck one night, tracing constellations real and imaginary. There’s sounds of merriment from belowdecks, but the sea itself has its own kind of music, the stars their own kind of light. She’s happy up here, and tells  _ him _ as much, her tough little hand clasped in his. 

“Besides,” she says, “I’m your captain. If anyone’s to keep watch while everyone’s downstairs arguing over sea shanty lyrics, it ought to be me.” 

“Then I guess I have to stay up here and keep you company,” he says. “Cuz I’m your friend.”

“Oh, just my friend?” She says, eyes laughing. “Just keeping  _ me _ company?”

“Just you, and the stars that can’t compare,” he says, threading his fingers through the back of her hair as he kisses her.


	7. Artagan/Jester, G

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rolls:   
> d12: " _gently in the cold dark earth_  
>  d10: Circus Tent  
> d10: Artagan/Jester

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sat on this one for a little longer than the others because I thought about making it longer, but I have too many projects going right now, so posting as-is.

It’s a trick, no more and no less. A series of tricks, performed under old, dusty spotlights.  _ Watch the Great Artagan perform miracles! Watch the Sapphire of the Sea call forth creatures from the ether!  _ The audiences’ eyes are on his long hands, on Jester’s shapely legs, on the green sequins that glitter off of both of their costumes. They never catch a thing. 

During the last trick, he always goes too high, and falls. Goes through a little trapdoor. Even the towns that have seen him pull this trick before always gasp, it looks so real. It should, they spend hours and hours working on it. When he first started learning magic, it seemed like an easy way to separate people from their money, but the work gets harder and harder all the time. He crawls out from under the stage on the other side of the canvas, to their dressing room. 

Through the cloth, he hears Jester finishing up the act, her monologue warning them of the price of taking too much power for oneself. It sounds good when she says it, almost like she believes it. She used to run back as soon as she was done with the monologue, worried about him hurting himself, but she waits longer now, working the crowd. 

“How’s your head?” is still her first question when she pulls the tent flap aside and slips in. Lavish tips spill over the sides of the hat she carries.

“Oh, you know,  _ aching _ ,” he replies, propping his head up towards the mirror on his fingertips. 

“Poor  _ thing _ ,” she says, setting down their earnings and fetching him a glass of water. “They loved you.”

“They loved  _ you _ ,” he corrects, a soft kiss on her cheek. “You keep the whole show running, hmm?”

“They love us,” she amends. “And every trick we give them.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos always appreciated <3


End file.
